Thessaloniki Mayor Boutaris Declines Run for Third Term

Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris on Wednesday announced that he will not run for office in the May 2019 local government elections, saying that his “cycle has closed.”

The mayor first informed the deputy mayors and his close associates, and then called a meeting of the municipal team called “Initiative for Thessaloniki”, to announce his decision to not run for a third term.

“My decision is personal and not political. After sixteen years in local government I think my cycle has closed. This, of course, does not mean that I will stop serving the city from other posts,” Boutaris told the Athens – Macedonian News Agency.

“The Initiative for Thessaloniki is now setting new goals for expanding and strengthening its self-governing character to continue the important work of the last eight years and to serve the future needs of the city beyond party dependencies,” he stated.

Boutaris stressed that his team “Opened Thessaloniki to the world. We planted the seed of renewal and extroversion. I believe that the city will create the right conditions so that we will not return to the gray and introverted condition of the past.”

Boutaris was elected in November 2010 as the sixtieth mayor of Thessaloniki, and was re-elected in May of 2014.